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| Saturday, 14 June 2003 |
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COLOMBO, Friday (AFP)-The United States Friday asked Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to end their boycott of peace talks and immediately resume negotiations with the Colombo government. The US embassy said the Tamil Tigers missed an "important opportunity" by staying away from a crucial donors' conference, which closed in Tokyo Tuesday with Sri Lanka getting pledges of 4.5 billion dollars in aid. "The issues that this organisation continues to raise through public announcements are exactly the types of issues that should be settled around a negotiating table," embassy spokeswoman Cody Taylor said. She said the US and the other co-chairs of the Tokyo donors' conference - Japan, Norway and the European Union - had urged the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to attend the "highly successful donors conference". "We urge them to return to talks with the government of Sri Lanka immediately," she said. The US statement came two days after the Tigers strongly hinted that the US and Japan were meddling in the island's ethnic conflict and cast aspersions on peacebroker Norway. The LTTE in a statement Wednesday accused "formidable external forces" of interfering in the island's ethnic conflict, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972. At the Tokyo conference, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage asked the Tigers to end their talks boycott. The US has declared the LTTE a terrorist organisation and will not talk to them directly. Describing the LTTE as an outfit "best known for pioneering the practice of turning its sons and daughters into human bombs," Armitage said the Tigers must build trust and convince the world that they can play a legitimate role. |
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